From the Pacific Northwest – Part LXVIII

“It doesn’t take a farm to invoke the iron taste of leaving in your mouth. Anyone who loves a small plot of ground — a city garden, a vacant lot with some guerilla beds, a balcony of pots — understands the almost physical hurt of parting from it, even for a minor stint. I hurt every day I wake up in our city bed, wondering how the light will be changing over the front field or across the pond, whether the moose will be in the willow by the cabin again, if the wren has fledged her young ones yet and we’ll return to find the box untended. I can feel where the farm is at any point in my day, not out of some arcane sixth sense developed from years of summer nights out there with the coyotes under the stars, but because of the bond between that earth and this body. Some grounds we choose; some are our instinctive homes.”

Art for Winter – Part I of III: Andrey Mamaev (Russian, contemporary): “Midnight”

A Poem for Today

“The Sun-Dial”
By Adelaide Crapsey

Every day,
Every day,
Tell the hours
By their shadows,
By their shadows.

Musings in Winter: Buck Brannaman

“Horses are incredibly forgiving. They fill in places we’re not capable of filling ourselves.”

“The belief that every living thing has an individual soul is called animism. (Anima, which means ‘soul,’ is also the root of the word ‘animal.’) Anthropologists have found this belief to be universal in children, though the children themselves don’t think of it as a belief. It is, to them, one of the most obvious features of the world around them, and the most obvious way of interpreting what goes on in that world.”

Art for Winter – Part III of III: Shawn Deitch (American, contemporary): “Out the Back Door”

A Second Poem for Today

“The Edges of Time”
By Kay Ryan

It is at the edges
that time
thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently
coming
from stacks of
put–off things or
just in back. A
racket
of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.

Musings in Winter: Jodi Picoult

“The constellation she’s named after tells the story of a princess, who was shackled to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster–punishment for her mother Casseopeia, who had bragged to Poseidon about her own beauty. Perseus, flying by, fell in love with Andromeda and saved her. In the sky, she’s pictured with her arms outstretched and her hands chained.”

Contemporary Russian Art – Part I of II: Rinat Voligamsi

In the words of one writer, “Entitled ‘The Conditions of Winter’, the works (below) are based on found photographs depicting scenes of Russian military life in harsh winter settings. However, the content of each image is given a characteristically uncanny, surreal twist – an alteration that is sometimes comical, often darkly beautiful, always oddly unsettling.”

The problem with boundaries: in the blink of an eye a dozen crows
lose their individuality and become a flock. Same as now:
frayed seconds disappear into quarters
that transfer their worth into the afternoon’s account.
Time flows but space isn’t any worse:
the flock of crows cuts the sky diagonally.
It’s as if a new continent were emerging
to greet halfway the nascent cartographers
and their dreams. Sooner or later the flock will break up
into birds. The sea will crumble into waves.
The waves into drops. A delicate afternoon will be calculable
like harvested grain. The room will resemble
a clock without hands.

Musings in Winter: Cormac McCarthy

“The crumpled butcherpaper mountains lay in sharp shadowfold under the long blue dusk and in the middle distance the glazed bed of a dry lake lay shimmering like the mare imbrium and herds of deer were moving north in the last of the twilight, harried over the plain by wolves who were themselves the color of the desert floor. Glanton sat his horse and looked long out upon this scene. Sparse on the mesa the dry weeds lashed in the wind like the earth’s long echo of lance and spear in old encounters forever unrecorded. All the sky seemed troubled and night came quickly over the evening land and small gray birds flew crying softly after the fled sun. He chucked up the horse. He passed and so passed all into the problematical destruction of darkness.”

Contemporary Russian Art – Part II of II: Katya Krasnaya

In the words of one writer, “After college Krasnaya enrolled to the Alexander Herzen University, where she studied fine arts. Due to artistic differences, she was unable to finish the course.
Growing up in St. Petersburg, a city steeped in the finest of artistic practices, Krasnaya’s works are equally shaped by her formal artistic training and her love of contemporary culture also present in the city. Often mixing fine art with graffiti styles, Krasnaya creates strong contemporary pieces, which respond to the ever-changing artistic landscape of cities.”

The Poor Old Soul plods down the street,
Contented, and forgetting
How Youth was wild, and Spring was wild
And how her life is setting;

And you lean out to watch her there,
And pity, nor remember,
That Youth is hard, and Life is hard,
And quiet is December.

American Art – Dale Terbush: Part I of II

In the words of one writer, “Dale Terbush celebrates life by living in a constant state of creativity. He is an artist who thrives on productivity and sheer enthusiasm for his electrifying art.”

Below – “In the Legend Long, Long Ago”; “All the Places You Dream of”; “One Moment in a Lifetime”; “All the Beauty of Blue”; “My Heart’s Home”; “Dancing in the Glory.”

Musings in Winter: Sophia McMaster

“Even nature; the restless waves, irregular trees and stars all out of line show that chaos can be beautiful!”

American Art – Dale Terbush: Part II of II

In the words of one writer, “Terbush is a master at transforming a beautiful image into something that is purely spiritual and poetic. His art speaks for itself; elegant and mysterious, exciting and bold, Terbush paints a mood and creates a scene of mesmerizing magic.”

Below – “Looking Through the Golden Glass”; “A Million Waves Goodbye”; “To Live in the Moment”; “Make the Moment Last”; “Soft Reminiscence”; “Down to the Sea and Back.”